It was a rainy day in Bangalore when I reached the Kyra theatre in Indiranagar for my first Avial live concert. Years after my conservative backward south Indian mind was blown away by ‘Nada Nada’, nothing could keep me away from this performance – not geography(I live in Chennai) or economics(had to take LOP leave) or even bio-economics(I was hungry ‘cause I was broke). By the way, if you work in my same project at office, I had stomach problems so had to take leave on that day. Everything else I say here is a lie.
 | |
| Tony kutta! You are the great! |
 | |
| Binny playing bass. Even a brain dead patient will tell you Avial has an superb bass guitarist. |
 | |
| Mithun : The man behind the drums....and smoke. |
 | ||
| Rex is awesome. Period. My photography sucks. Second period. |
By the time Avial was ready on stage, I was already 1.2feet in the air(can’t jump any higher). Tony’s performance was so OSTENTATIOUS that I had to go through a thesaurus to find out that particular adjective to describe it. He came on stage with his shiney head held high and his senses safely kept back stage. But hey! I was just happy to be there and no matter how melo dramatic his dialogues and ‘actions’ where, I still cheered!
 |
| Beware of ethinicity |
I’m setting aside the generic Avial concert evaluation – “Tony doesn’t have the same punch as Anand”. Every creature with or without a central nervous system that had attended an Avial concert has told me this. What they didn’t tell me was about APPAN TAPPAN MURUGAN and JAGA PUGA JAGA PUGA JAGA PUGA. I still don’t have much of an idea but hey! I still cheered!
Time for the first guest appearance. Suraj Mani of Motherjane comes on stage and everyone starts doing back flips in excitement. Now Avial and Suraj play the classic Mindstreet from their album Maktub. Go google the italicised words if you don’t know them you dumb bastard!
 |
| I was too buzy listening to Mindstreet to case to take a good photo. |
Enter Jyotsna.
 |
| Karukara : Note the slight shift in my focus point. You're welcome. |
Yeah! I know! Now you’re doing backflips aren’t you? Till she came on stage, Tony took 15 minute breaks after 15 minutes of playing. Hmmmmm....
After performing the new songs, mainly Ayyo and then Aanakallan and one with only Jyotsna. Tony asked the audience “Onne nadakaan thayyaar aano?”. This was followed by hundreds and hundreds of people singing Nada Nada word for word including even the rooster sound. Tony just stood on stage so that the mike stand doesn’t get lonely.
Since I want to pretend to be a big shot, I shall go ahead and rate this performance thought I don’t know the first thing of music.
Sense : 3 / 5
Sensibility : 4.18 / 5
Sensitivity : 7000000 / 5
For those who didn’t get it, here’s an image of Jyotsna as a compensation.
If you don’t know who Avial is, here’s an actual conversation I had with a guy :-
Me : Here, listen to Avial man. They’re awesome.
Prejudiced fool : Avial? The side dish?
Me : They’re a Malayali rock band with full lyrics in Malayalam.
Prejudiced fool : Fuck you man! I don’t want to listen to some crap in Malayalam! I’ll be cursing you for years for making me listen to this.
5 minutes later....
Prejudiced fool : They’re really awesome man!
HA! Avial rocks yet another face!